The pneumatic paintball gun has achieved widespread acceptance both as a recreational sport item, and as a means for training police and military personnel in the use of conventional and semi-automatic weapons in combat-like situations. Products for the recreational paintball gun user, and products for police, military and para-military training have diverged and have become application specific. Recreational paintball users prefer paintball guns and accessories which permit rapid fire over large distances with large ammunition reserves. In contrast, the police, para-military, and military units such as special weapons and tactics prefer paintball guns and accessories which simulate close range performance of standard issue semi-automatic hand guns.
There are numerous differences between a pneumatic paintball gun, and a standard issue 45 caliber or 9 mm semi-automatic weapon. A paintball is a spheroid having a nominal diameter of approximately 0.69 inch, with a frangible shell manufactured from an acrylic material which is subsequently filled with a marking material in liquid form commonly referred to as "paint". This "paint" is actually a sophisticated polymer containing a water soluble dye. Paintballs are accelerated to relatively low velocities (maximum muzzle velocity of approximately 280 feet per second) with low accuracy especially at longer ranges. Conventional semi-automatic hand guns fire elongated bullets having a much smaller diameters and at much greater muzzle velocities (on the order of 1,000 feet per second or more) with greater accuracy at long distance.
While bullets are propelled by a small explosive charge within a bullet jacket, paintball guns typically use external sources of compressed gas such as carbon dioxide. Sophisticated valving arrangements release precisely measured amounts of compressed gas into a barrel of the paintball gun to propel the paintball when a trigger is depressed. Many paintball guns include mechanisms for semi-automatic operation which do not require manually recocking the gun after each shot. In addition, semi-automatic paintball guns automatically load another paintball into the firing chamber.
Paintball guns tend to be somewhat bulkier than their bullet firing hand gun analogs. Although hand-held paintball guns are known, such guns often employ an elongated paintball magazine which project perpendicularly from the axis of the gun barrel. This multiple projectile magazine is well suited for use in rifle-style paintball guns which are popular with recreational users. In addition, the industry has developed bulbous "hopper" type chambers to take the place of the previous enlongated style magazines. Both types of magazines employ the use of gravity to urge the paintball into the breach area of the paintball gun. Clearly, such designs do not simulate or emulate the smooth anal streamlined appearance of the typical semi-automatic pistol-type firearm. In contrast, modern 45 caliber and 9 mm firearms employ clip magazines which fit into the handgrip of the pistol or otherwise fit smoothly into the general envelope of the weapon. They do not interfere with withdrawal of the weapon from a holster. A trained user can remove the magazine from a semi-automatic pistol and install a new one in total darkness. In addition, firearm magazines do not rely on gravity feed and can feed bullets into the firing chamber of the gun regardless of gun orientation.
Thus, a need exists for a paintball magazine which contains a plurality of paintballs relatively equal to the number of bullets contained in a conventional pistol magazine, which fits smoothly into the general envelope of the paintball pistol, which can be removed and installed in total darkness, and which can feed paintballs into the breach portion of a paintball pistol regardless of the orientation of the pistol.